(What I see, What I've been taught, what I've learned, what amazes me...)

October 8, 2008

My Hair

This past weekend I had a chance to see how others see my hair. I have been growing out the color for about a year, best guess, give or take a month.

Brief recap. I was very blond when little, as a young girl, and as a teenager, with or without Sun-In (can I get a witness?). Shortly after my babies started arriving, hair started darkening, and by the mid-30’s, it started to lighten up again….but with a distinctly different tint, a grey-ish glint.

I remember my mother only as having a head of silver hair, and expected to have the same, but when I was caught with a camcorder (early 90’s and that’s what they were!)…shock horror! I had brown hair with ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ streaks. I looked so dowdy. I was also trying to find a new job out of state. Steps needed to be taken. A drastic solution for a desperate situation, as it were.

So the coloring of hair started. And so it continued…to last year, when I decided I so over it. My length-impaired stylist did some last color magic to ease the grow out pain, and the change began.

It has been neither unpleasant, nor dramatic. I had been coloring blonde, and the front/top of my hair is very light naturally. Not much change in other words. I am keeping it longish, shoulder length, so there is some blonde on the ends still. My hair grows sooooo slow. And like many other things in life, a gradual change comes to seem like no change until we meet up with someone who sees it.

So this weekend, Wonderful Guy and I go to our local mall for a few errands. I duck into a clothing store to check out the end of the season sales, find some likely prospects, and go to try them on. Wonderful Guy comes into the store after a while, is approached by a sales person, and he says he believes his wife is in a dressing room. He attempts to describe me, saying ‘she has…’ and the salesperson attempts to help ‘…white hair?’

I have white hair to a complete stranger.

White. Hair.

What did I expect? I am not sure, but to hear it put to words…it just feels a bit mature…which is what I am, I know….but maybe isn’t exactly what I feel.

Hi Becky! It looks so beautiful out your way.I'm a tad older than you but I'm goung through the hair thing, too. I'm still coloring it but a lighter version and I notice the grey shows up like natural blondish streaks. But I'm getting sick of coloring it, too! White hair is cool!

I haven't gotten to a point where I'm ready to let my silver show. I began to go gray in my mid-twenties. When I was 33, my daughter's elementary school classmate asked her why her GRANDMOTHER picked her up from school instead of her mother. Gads, he thought I was her grandmother. So I color. I will continue to color until I feel ready. Maybe when I really AM a grandmother.

What a nice blog you have! I have really enjoyed reading your earlier posts, and will very soon be back again!

I think it soulds lovely with white hair, natural white! Happy you! I am slowly getting some grey in mine, unfortunately not white, which is much nicer, but I am happy for what I get. By nature I'm rat-coloured, not a bit dramatic or fashoned or anything nice, so I really hope a lot for my new grey stile :-)